Wednesday, July 7, 2010

My international readers likely think this only happens every 4 years, when we elect some poor sucker to be President. But we have mid-term elections every 2 years. And there's pretty much some local election 1-2 times a year, for mayor, or dog-catcher, or dirt lot inspector. Or we're voting on some proposition to raise/lower taxes or build/not build a school/landfill/baseball stadium. Voting is a way of life here.

I have nothing against democracy. But it has a dark side (not including the politicians).

I HATE all those damn signs that start to show up on street corners and vacant lots this time of year. By the boatload. They seem to spring up overnight. And never come down.

It's the last part that really drives me nuts. Months after an election is over, the signs will still be up. The winner is too busy to take them down. The loser is too depressed to do the same. And so they sit there as an eyesore, until it's time for the next election. Then they get pulled down by the next crop of office-seeking idiots.

My political career is limited. When I was 12 I ran for treasurer of my 7th grade class, and lost. I don't think I ran a very good campaign. For that matter, I really don't think I knew what a treasurer did. I honestly have no idea why I did it. I suspect it had something to do with recently having noticed girls (in retrospect, I don't think the class treasurer got the chicks).

But my school had a damn good rule about elections: The winners wouldn't be announced until every damn sign was gone. Granted, I know that's impractical on a nationwide scale, but there's got to be some answer to deal with these eyesores. Why can't we restrict it to signs can't be up more than 30 days before and 30 days after an election? Violators will be fined/disqualified/sterilized.

On a side note, I strongly believe in the political theory proposed in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" that anyone who actually wants to be President/Prime Minister/Chief Goombah so badly to run for the office is automatically too insane to hold the job. We need to find a way to identify the person who is least interested in the job, and then put them in charge. Just don't let them figure out what they're really doing.

29 comments:

I hate the signs too. I think they're an international phenomenon. Here in Ireland the green party got in and brought in a law that they had to be taken down within 24 or 48 or something hours after the election. The reason I'm not sure how many is no one really paid any attention. And you really can't beat politicians who don't bother to obey their own laws.

Also - I might not mind so much if they weren't uniformly ugly. Hot politicians with abs bursting at the seams might be ok.

And Douglas Adams was right about most things, as it turns out. Genius.

For national elections at least, signs are legally supposed to be removed within 24 hours after the election. The DNC really emphasized that to us at the last Presidential elections and said that they would be fined if the signs weren't removed. Signs in general are ugly.

Our local EMS/rescue was hosting a fundraiser and we didn't have the money to have lawn signs printed, so we just went around and pulled up all the outdated ones that prior events and candidates had failed to retrieve...and we re-used them. So, in this case, their negligence helped us. Not that this isolated event excuses them, but as they say, it's an ill wind...

Since we just finished the primaries the signs for those chosen to run for an office (and selected) are now just really early ads for the November election.The stakes they use to hold up the signs are useful for tomato and bean plants in the garden.

Here locally there are pretty decent fines that are given to the person named on the sign if they're not removed within a certain amount of time after the election. Exceptions are folks' yards who just want to keep them up, of course. That happens occasionally but really, that's just like self-marking the insane around here; it's so nice of them to label themselves so you know to give wide berth.

All the signs left more than 10 days after a campaign should be pulled up, deposited on the offending candidate's front lawn, and burned. His neighbors would have a nice bonfire to enjoy and he would have a nice reminder for his next campaign..

Forget philosopher kings and forget finding the person who least wants the job, I have the answer that will fix American democracy.

All elected officials must, at the end of each term of office (whether they run for reelection or not) face a gauntlet of anyone that voted for them. These citizens are free to attack the official physically without any fear of criminal prosecution.

The official will be permitted to make a speech to the Constituent Gauntlet before facing it, and address any concerns their electors have before submitting themselves to the mercy of the people who elected them.

There was a businessman in Chicago who would pay kids $0.10 a sign (or something like that) when I was a kid. It was a paltry amount by today's standards, and it wasn't all that great back in the early 80s, either. But it cleared up some of the signs.

The signs bother me too. But the most annoying are those running on a platform of environmentalism. One of the candidates for mayor in my city gave a speech that basically said, "My goal is to clean up the city's garbage and support initiatives that encourage recycling and reusing."

Nope, none of his signs were made of recycled materials. They were double sided, made of plastic so can not even be reused.

Whenever people want a dx without diagnostics, I generally mutter "42" under my breath. Most of the techs don't get it. However, the tech that wrote the admitting complaint for "Yoda," the chihuahua, was "Attacked by cat was I" got it.

My idea - about the political signs as well as all the garage/yard sale signs that never get taken down - the 'owners' are easily identified. After a 2 - 3 grace period, the cities ought to fine those who do not take them down. At least it would be a way to fill the town coffers again!

I personally love the signs. I use them (after elections, natch) to make Halloween props. The wire stands work great with styrofoam tombstones, and the actual signs themselves are usually the corrugated plastic stuff that is weatherproof and lovely for various projects.

And yes, I realize that Halloween is a ways off, but if you do a full on yard haunt, you have to get building the props early. I revel in my weirdness, and the neighborhood kids adore our house. :)

You can't have a post like this without the ghost of Ambrose Bierce doing a walk-on:

"POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive."--The Devil's Dictionary

What really annoys me about those signs is that I see them from afar and mistake them for garage sale signs and get all excited.

Which brings up another point. Like campaign signs after the election ends, garage sale signs should be removed as soon as the sale is over. I think there should be a steep fine, and maybe jail time, for those who leave garage sale signs posted long after the sale has ended.

In Australia, we have some fairly solid laws about the duration of election campaigns (maximum of 6 weeks between the calling of the campaign and polling day), the day our elections are held (we opt for a Saturday polling day, as at least that way the schools are available for use as polling stations) and also some nice rules about how close to the polling stations the advertising can run (I think it's 100m, although I'm pretty sure the sitting member in the last electorate I was in had a problem with their tape measure on that one). It does mean we tend to avoid the worst of the perpetual campaigning problem you folksen in the US appear to have, although the reduced amount of time between election years (every 3 years for federal elections, rather than every 4) means we wind up with an effective government only one year in three (first year is clearing out the debris from the previous mob, last year is spent clearing the decks for the next election, so serious governing only happens in year 2 of a 3 year term).

Our next Federal election is scheduled for some time around November this year at the latest, but could be any time from now until the end of 2010 depending on where the ALP (the party currently in government) finds themselves in the polls.

Welcome to my whining!

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